Los Gatos is in shock this morning as news that longtime resident Peter Carter died suddenly after falling down the stairs at his home on Broadway.

Details are still emerging, but the accident apparently happened just before midnight.

According to friend Jonathan Knowles, Carter had been out to dinner earlier in the evening with the Los Gatos Social Club, but left a birthday gift behind. A social club member was taking the gift to Carter and he apparently fell while going to answer the door.

"We just celebrated Peter's 70th birthday last week," Knowles said. "It's very sad. He was one of my best friends."

Knowles was at Good Samaritan Hospital when Carter was pronounced dead. "They were unable to revive him at home, unable to revive him on the way to the hospital and unable to revive him at the hospital," Knowles said.

Carter and his wife Dennise lived in an old Victorian, so the stairs are narrow and steep, reflecting the home's time period.

"He used to fly down those stairs," Knowles said.

Knowles called Carter a "pillar of the community." In recent years he was the front man for the Los Gatos Social Club, a group that meets on Wednesdays for cocktails and dinner.

He was also an active member of the Los Gatos Music & Arts committee and a member of the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Foundation board of directors.

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Now retired, Carter ran a successful public relations agency in downtown San Jose for years and was a member of the powerful downtown San Jose Rotary Club.

He was also an accomplished photographer whose photos often appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Alameda Family Funeral & Cremation in Saratoga.